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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27685918">There's Always a First</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HissHex/pseuds/HissHex'>HissHex</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>NaNoWriMo 2020 - A TMA Collection [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cannibalism, First non OC's have appeared!, Gen, Its all OC's I'm afraid, Lonely-induced Suicide, Martin and Jonah are mentioned, Violence, for now, here he is!, my boy, the grossness that is generally implied with Corruption, well..., why is there no tag for pre-Michael Distortion?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:42:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,792</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27685918</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HissHex/pseuds/HissHex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Powers have always existed.</p><p>Avatars on the other hand, are remarkably new in the grand scheme of things. </p><p>The first Avatar of each Fear.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>NaNoWriMo 2020 - A TMA Collection [24]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995427</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. End</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Entities have always existed in one form or another. As soon as creatures became sentient enough to feel fear, the Entities watched and fed off them. The Entities have no beginning and they will have no end. Their Avatars, however, are relatively much more recent.</p><p> </p><p>As soon as life began, living creatures have despaired over its <b>End</b>.</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>It barely had any true comprehension of what was about to happen to it. Legs twitching weakly as it lay crumpled on the ground. The rest of its </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>pack</span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span> gathered around it </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>at the bottom of the cliff where it had met its untimely demise. Its eyes flickered around in panic before eventually stilling. The surrounding creatures, whose descendants would one day go one to become cat and dogs, sniffed at the corpse before starting to wander off. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> As the last few got up from their vigil, there was a violent twitch. Fur matted with blood and bones sticking out at odd angles, the creature wobbled to its legs. Its eyes still stared with the gaze of the dead but they looked around slowly. Its remaining pack mates backed away as it stumbled towards them. One of them sniffed at the approaching body, snarling and flinching away at the smell of clearly dead flesh. But it’s initial approach was all that was needed, the undead creature lunging forward and snapping its jaws around its pack mates throat. The rest of its pack howled and shrieked and ran off, fear blinding them. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>It’s cracked jaw lolled, </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>blood dripping from its teeth as it loped off in the desert heat. </span>
  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Hunt</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'll be posting 2 chapters a day until I'm done &lt;3</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The chase, the tracking, the inevitable defeat as you succumbed to the <strong>Hunt</strong>.</p><p>This new creature that plagued the desert was a terrifying new horror. It could be outran but when you stopped, it did not able to walk and walk and walk for days at a time. The other creatures that made their home in the hot plains cowered in fear of this bipedal terror.</p><p>The Lion refused. This new creature had no claws, no teeth and it was puny compared to him. This new ape needed to remember what it felt to be preyed upon for once. He spent days tracking down the fledgling tribe, waiting. The Lion prowled through the long grass as a man walked away from his people. The man looked over his shoulder, to see the glaring eyes and sharp teeth of the lion as it crept up on him.</p><p>A scream. The Lion pounced.</p><p>By the time the rest of the tribe arrived, there was nothing more than blood on the ground, dragged away into the thick grass, and the roar of a Lion.</p><p>They stuck close to their camp after that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Dark</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>
    <span>In the light of day you be be able to see and fear what stalks you, but in the </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <b>Dark</b>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span> of the night your own imagination fuels your fear.<br/><br/></span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>A young girl stared out of the cave that her family had made their home. It was night and the moon and stars were covered by a thick layer of clouds that blocked out what little light would have reached the ground. The outside world was shrouded in darkness that blinded her as she stumbled up and away from her parents and siblings. As she strode towards the imaginary barrier that separated their home from the dangerous outside, she could swear she could see something in the darkness. A twisting curling shape, constantly at the very edge of her vision. She reached her hand out into the dark mass, into what was for all intents and purposes, just air. She stood there, feeling foolish, before she felt something briefly brush across her hand as she blinked. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> She closed her eyes. The </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span> curled up her arm, she smiled and began to shout for her family to wake up. That was the last thought she had before it yanked her into that deep sea of black nothingness. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> Her family woke up to her lying in bed. They didn’t notice anything at first. Her dark brown eyes perhaps a shade darker and maybe she stayed up later and later. Nothing seemed wrong though, not at first, but then people started going missing. An aunt who liked to scold the children for being lazy vanishing in the middle of the night, a sister who stole her dinner, they all went missing one by one until it was just the little girl and her mother. That night, the mother woke up to a rustling, her initial fear of whatever hid in the darkness overwhelmed by her need to protect her only living child. She jumped up, seeing her daughter’s bedroll empty. She searched and search but in the night-time darkness, it was difficult. She sobbed at her loss before she heard another rustle outside the cave. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>She raced out into the pitch black, surrounded at all sides by a shadow so thick she felt as if she could have cut it. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Eventually, the woman saw a short figure standing outside the cave. She rushed over to the form of her daughter and hugged her tightly. As she leaned back she felt a trickle of fear slide down her spine as she looked into her daughter’s eyes. They were pools of tar-like fluid that dripped down her cheeks. The girl smiled as her mother was pulled further and further into the darkness. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>“<span><span>Isn’t it </span></span><span><span>pretty</span></span><span><span> mama?”</span></span></p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Desolation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>
    <span>The razing of a town, the burning of a home, the screaming of a </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>mother in pure</span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <b> Desolation.</b>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Arek prodded the embers of the central fire of his tribe’s camp in sullen silence. Everyone loved his little brother. Handsome and quick and smart, Subi was everyone’s favourite. No one cared about Arek, they thought him too stupid, too slow to do anything but tend to the fire.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> It wasn’t fair. Arek wasn’t stupid, he was no slower than anyone else but compared to wonderful, </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>perfect</span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span> Subi, he looked so much worse. It didn’t help that the little brat loved it, he loved the attention and he loved mocking Arek, that no one cared about him. That Subi could leave him to the wolves to eat and no one would even take a moment to mourn him. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>Subi was a perfect angel to everyone but Arek. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> Arek scowled, stoking the fire a little higher, reaching over his shoulder to throw in some more fuel. His hand found Subi’s favourite cloak, he curled his fingers into the soft fabric and hurled it into the fire. He grinned as he watched the fabric curl up into ash in front of him. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> The rest of the tribe were out, busy hunting or finding roots in the sandy soil. Working hard to keep everyone alive and Arek had been left to watch over everything the tribe cared about. The fire, the food stocks, the children…</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> Subi.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>His little brother had hurt his ankle and had been left behind for once, he had been fussed over as if he wasn’t a damn adult who could look after himself. When Arek got hurt he just got laughed at and left to himself, but no, Subi got fawned over like a child. Arek prodded the fire again, watching the flames rise around Subi’s writhing body. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> It had been easy in the end, Subi was so used to everyone fawning over him that he didn’t expect Arek to be up to anything when he came over. Didn’t realise right up until he gagged his little brother and tied him down onto the logs he had strapped together. His perfect little brother wasn’t so handsome anymore. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> Arek had a pack full of food next to him, the tribe wouldn’t let him stay around after this. Not that there would be much remaining once Arek was done. He carefully lit bundles of twigs on the bonfire before throwing them into the tents of the camp. It wouldn’t take long for it to burn to the ground. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> There was a shriek. One of the gathering parties had come back. Arek looked down at his hands as they screamed at him, looked down at the ash that coated them. He tried to brush it off, only it seemed like his hands were made of nothing but ash, no skin laying underneath. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>One of the gatherers shouted his name in amongst the creies and insults. He looked up at her and smiled. She recoiled as he felt something warm drip down his chin. He wiped it off and stared at the cooling magma that ran along his fingers. Arek looked at the weeping figures, a wave of burning anger bubbling up inside him. They wouldn’t have cared at all if he had been the one in the fire. He stepped towards them, they were too engrossed in the fire to notice his approach. </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>By the time the hunting party came back, there was nothing left but a field of ash. </span>
  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Corruption</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>
    <span>Humanity is a breeding ground for </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <b>Corruption</b>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>, in all its writhing forms. <br/><br/></span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>Ditanu hummed as he measured out grain and passed it over to the aging woman, taking her basket of eggs in exchange. It had been a harsh summer and the crops had been poor, not enough grain to properly feed the people. If he didn’t supply them with grain then how would he feed his own family? His beautiful Kishar would leave him if he couldn’t provide for her, would return to her parent’s home. He loved her too much for that. So when the harvest came in so poor, he knew he would have to do something to make it last longer. He started with a little sawdust, no one would notice if he didn’t put too much in. No one said anything as the amount of sawdust increased further and further but even so, he knew he couldn’t add any more without the people rioting. They were hungry, all the harvests had been poor and his grain was the only thing some of them had to eat. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> Dinatu looked towards the old stores of grain, rotting and fit for nothing more than pigs or even fertiliser. He kept his own families grain store clean and fresh before mixing in the rotting grain, the worms and the pests that resided within it. If anything, they should thank him, the protein would be good for them. He had to remind himself of that as he looked down at the squirming mess at the bottom of the bag of grain that he passed over to the young couple that came up to his stall, feeling no regret as he received a </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>parcel of fresh apples, his darling Kishar’s favourite. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>This continued deep into the winter, the people growing more and more sick as he ground up whatever he could find to bulk out the dwindling supplies of grain. He eventually noticed his darling Kishar was using a lot of their own clean supply of grain and he warned her to be careful, that they would have no more when it ran out. He told her that she must not touch the grain he sold to others. She shouted at him, angry and loud, demanded that he cared more about his stall than he did about her, if he would not share the grain for his stall with her. Ditanu peppered her with kisses and showed her the fruit he had brought back for her. She spat at him, throwing the fruit to the ground before storming off. He took the apples and dried them. Ground up into the grain, they might even help mask the taste of the maggots.</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> He continued on, selling the people his rotten grain and ignoring their own swiftly diminishing stock. Ignoring the spreading sickness as less and less people came to the marketplace. He sighed, trudging home. He could not hear his beautiful Kishar, nor could he see her by the fire. He called her name, to no response. He barely noticed the bread that stood on the counter, or what had once been bread, covered in mold and maggots as it was. He rushed into their bedroom and their lay his wonderful Kishar, his wife and love. A chunk of what had once been bread lay by her limp hand, a stray maggot writhing in her palm. He looked up at her face and </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>sobbed</span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span> at the sight. Her mouth was full of the rot that he had been selling the people and pests had bitten and crawled through her throat, spilling down onto her dress. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>He began to scream before he felt a squirming mass choke his throat as he keeled over, hacking up a very familiar mix of rotting grain, maggots and parasites dripping between his fingers as he stared in horror. </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Buried</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>
    <span>The drowning, dark depths call out to us. A mystery long </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <b>Buried</b>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span> beneath the earth. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span><br/>C</span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>aela loved to explore. Loved scrambling up hills and crawling through caves. She loved to overturn stones and find out what lurked under them. It got her away from her home, from the unending work and the ever present lack of food that weighed down on them all. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> She slipped down into the cave, it was one she hadn’t explored yet, a little bit further from her home than usual. The only person she ever told where she was going was her aunt, a happy woman that didn’t approve of all the serious talk around the children. Her aunt thought that children deserved to have fun, to play and explore and be happy. Caela loved her aunt. Caela had told her that she was going to this particular cave and that was the only thing that reassured her as the ground began to rumble around her. </span>
  </span>
</p><p><span><span> She wasn’t even that far from the entrance when they found her. She must have fallen and a heavy rock had dropped </span></span>and trapped her there, pinned under the cold, damp stone. She looked pale when they shifted the stone off her, both skin and eyes so very washed out like the creatures that made their homes in the deepest caves. There was soil around her nose and mouth, debris that had fallen from the ceiling. She was lucky it hadn’t suffocated her they told her once they got her out of the cave. She would just smile and wipe a little more soil away from her mouth. An uncle was concerned about her chest, that it didn't feel right, and that surely it must have been crushed by the stone, but she insisted she wasn’t in any pain and if anything it seemed a little bloated.</p><p>Her mother died that night, lips blue from asphyxiation, face pale and eyes bloodshot. She was the first but she would be the last. A string of deaths, no marks of strangulation and nothing more than dirt between their teeth as the only mark of what had happened.</p><p>Caela’s aunt looked on at the horror as her family dropped around her. She gazed down at her beloved Caela, playing in the dirt. She knew something was wrong with the little girl. She took her husband’s spear and crept up on the young girl, praying that she was right, that she wasn’t harming her own kin for no reason. She thrust the spear into the girl’s chest and gasped at the river of soil that poured out of the wound. Caela turned around, hurt in her eyes as she looked at her aunt, before anger overtook those same eyes and she lunged out at her aunt.</p><p>It was a full week before anyone found them, a band of traders who stumbled upon the bodies, an entire family asphyxiated and the corpse of a woman sat in the middle, earth pouring out of her slack mouth.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Spiral</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I love how in episode 126, where Gabriel is in the sculpting class, when asked to make a portrait he makes a door and it is all "hey, hey, look! This is my friend!"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Madness comes in many forms, a twisting <b>Spiral</b> that shifts the senses. Makes the familiar, unknown and the unknown familiar.</p><p>Gabriel had been known by many names to many people. A sculptor by trade, he was doing well in this economic boom, so many houses built, so many statues commissioned. He chewed on a clay covered finger as he shifted the planes of the handsome face that was coming into being from the pile of clay sat on his desk. Despite his success, Gabriel did not have many friends. Maybe they were put off by his appearance or the clay constantly stuck under his fingertips and in the lines of the wrinkles on his face.</p><p>He had one friend though. He had never spoken to them, but sometimes while he was working he would hear the soft sounds of a door opening at a hiss of peculiar static. He never looked, too engrossed with his art, but he liked to listen to the background noise of his new friend. It wasn’t like the being talked, at least not with words and yet Gabriel felt like he understood what it was saying. He finished his sculpture and laughed when they shouted at him. He didn’t understand it was a perfect replica of the young man. Maybe not of his outward appearance, but no one could deny that it looked exactly like his rotten heart.</p><p>Gabriel didn’t know what to do, no one would hire him now, scared of the crawling horrors he created. For the first time since he heard the static behind him, Gabriel turned around to look at his friend. He smiled, a big toothy grin, bright colours playing across his face as he stared at the door.</p><p>“Of course, my friend! I should make a portrait of you!”</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>The yellow door hung silent as the </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>C</span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>lay </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>W</span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>orker laughed. </span>
  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Stranger</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Eyo, its the Not!Them cos personally I don't think the Stranger takes a whole lot of avatars and I couldn't think of one.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>
    <span>The nagging suspicion that you do not know your friends and family, that secretly each and every one of them was a </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <b>Stranger</b>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <br/>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>I Do Not Know You was not known for its avatars, preferring to make its own inhuman creations. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>It did not know when it awoke. One minute it was nothing, the next there was fear and shouting and then it became Yaotl, a temple worker. It had to learn quickly to figure out how to act human, let alone how to act like Taotl, and the people of the temple slaughtered it when it acted too strange.</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> Its next attempt was on Meztli, a young girl, a darling of her small village. It was a little better this time around and no one worked out that Meztli was Not Meztli anymore. There was however one small mistake that ended it’s lifetime as Meztli very early. Meztli </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span> the darling of the village and when the harvests failed for two years in a row, she was sacrificed in the temple. It had snarled and tried to get away but the humans had considered that a sign. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>It had flipped between bodies, discarding forms and identities, again and again, causing fear and paranoia amongst the people. It was preying on the fear of a young man as it pretended to be his lover, when the Web came. They ticked and twisted its form, binding it to the terrible table.</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> It would be several centuries before an Archivist with an axe would release it back into the world. </span>
  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Web</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>
    <span>Many a fool has been caught in a </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <b>Web</b>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span> of lies and manipulation. Finding their lives no longer under their own control.</span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <br/>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>She didn’t consider herself anyone special. She had grown up poor but had caught the eye of a local lord and found herself catapulted into the higher echelons of society. She suddenly had the ear of politicians and merchants and nobility. The intelligence that had helped her con the local boys into buying her food for her family was now turned onto the rich and powerful. She took delight in twisting and ruining the relationships of the pitiful, weak fools who dared to consider themselves better than the common folk just because they were born to a richer family. It burned in her blood and she loved the look on their faces when their wives and friends turned on them. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>She smiled at the man her husband introduced her to, Pasna was a slimy man that loved to hold onto her hand for a little too long. The man didn’t touch her all night, thank goodness, only out of respect for her husband than any respect for her own body. She suffered through his crude jokes and insinuations, her useless husband not even attempting to defend her. Just like her parents had never tried to defend her from the harsh words and blows of the other children.</p><p>Late that night she wandered the halls of their home when she heard the cry of one of the maids, she strode over, intending to scold the young woman for still being awake, when she heard the low laughter of her husband’s guest.</p><p>She slammed open the door and snarled at the man that had backed up her maid into a corner. The words flowed from her mouth and wrapped around him like silk, puppeteering his limbs and mind.</p><p>“<em><span>Leave Pasna. You are no longer welcome here. You will leave this house and walking into the forest. You will not fight when the wolves descend upon you for it is a mercy compared to what you deserve.”</span></em></p><p> </p><p>It was not the wolves that ate him that night. His body was found weeks later covered in spider webs, a mere husk as his life had been sipped away by the army of spiders that scuttled into the under brush of the forest.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Slaughter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>War is Blood and Death and Anger and Cool Indifference to the misery that surrounds you as friend and foe fall to the endless </span>
  <b>Slaughter</b>
  <span>.</span>
  <span><br/>Interlocked shields and sharp blades. </span>
  <span>Aetius huffed as he and the other soldiers around him pushed forward onto the battlefield. </span>
</p><p>The war had been brutal, the losses on both sides were practically catastrophic and Aetius did not falter as his brothers in arms fell around him.</p><p> </p><p>They should have won, the battle should have been easy if not for the traitor in their ranks who let the enemy into their shield wall. Aetius snarled as he trudged trough the mud, the soil churned up and red with blood. The battle had been lost, he did not know how long it had been since he last saw one of his own men, their commander, a man who had lead him into an incalculable number of successful battles, was struck down within minutes of the slaughter.</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He saw the traitor, laughing with his new </span>
  <em>
    <span>friends</span>
  </em>
  <span> and picking over the bodies of Aetius’s comrades, the people that the bastard had once stood side by side with. Aetius felt a rushing wave of anger and, sword drawn, he stormed over to the group. It was a small party, not the entire contingent, but there was enough of them that Aetius knew he would not win, he would not live to see tomorrow, but he had to kill that traitorous son of a bitch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> The laughter stopped as they caught sight of him, but rose again when they realised we was alone. Mocking jeers and insults washed over him but in this state he could not hear them, so incensed with rage that their words meant nothing to him. </span>
  <span>Their laughter became strained when one of them went up to finish him off and he knocked the man out cold. He did not care about these fools, he wanted the traitorous scum dead and then he could die in peace. The next two to come up were more wary and fought back this time. He killed them all the same, bloodlust running in his veins and he barely took the time to wait for their bodies to drop to the ground before he stepped through them towards the traitor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> The man was scared, Aetius could see it in his eyes and he felt a flare of rage fuelled glee. The group ended up not being as hard to dispatch as he had thought they would be and the traitor screamed in fear as he died. The coward looked up at his once comrade to see a creature that barely resembled the man he once knew, eyes red and his heavy wounds bleeding but not stopping him in the slightest. He could see a hole straight through where Aetius’s liver would be and still the man did not stop the carnage he was creating. Aetius saw now that </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>he</span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span> and the other Roman soldiers had been the cowards all along, hiding behind those useless shields instead of embracing the fury and joy of true battle. His immediate revenge satisfied, Aetius stepped back out onto the battlefield to teach his remaining comrades a lesson. </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Lonely</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Those bound to the <b>Forsaken</b> are often so numbed by their patron’s power that other powers struggle to hurt them.</p><p>The fog had descended swiftly on their fleet as they approached the cold, rainy land. When it first appeared it blocked Holmgeir’s view of the other ships in their fleet, but it didn’t take long for it to creep ever closer, eventually hiding even the men on the row in front of him. Even their voices were muffled. The only reason he knew anyone was still there was that the boat was still moving forward. Despite such thick fog, no one stood up to gather closer to one another. To Holmgeir it reminded him of the ice lands to the north, a freezing mist that numbed the senses. He looked across to the only man he could still see. Eyvind was shivering as he pulled at his oar and appeared so pale Holmgeir could have mistaken him for a corpse. Watching Eyvind gave him something to think about other than the wall of white mist, he found the other man’s reactions almost amusing. A little isolation and the other man fell apart. Holmgeir had spent many winters by himself, enjoying the time to himself, so this was nothing. It was like this for days, hey should have come ashore by now but the fog stretched out before them with no end in sight.</p><p>The ship was slowing, it was a steady decrease in speed and they were barely moving at this point. Holmgeir stood up to check their crewmates despite Eyvind’s panicked protests. The crew in the row in front of them were still there and he clapped them on the back before continuing towards the front of the ship.</p><p>The next row weren’t there, neither were any of them all the way up to the front of the ship. No wonder they weren’t moving, there was only four of them rowing. There was no sign of where they went and Holmgeir returned to his seat, knuckles tight on the wood of his oar. He continued to watch Eyvind deteriorate as the endless fog shrouded them.</p><p>He was doing another walk up the length of the ship when he saw it, Eyvind stood on the side of the ship, wobbling dangerously and looking truly terrified. Holmgeir took one step towards him and Eyvind threw himself off the side, heedless of the icy water that would sap his strength in seconds. Holmgeir ran over and looked over the side of the boat but Eyvind had vanished. With no other choice, Holmgeir returned to his seat and kept on rowing.</p><p>The ship continued to slow until one day Holmgeir realised he was the only one still on the ship. It didn’t bother him as much as it should have. He quite enjoyed the rowing without having to deal with everyone else's chatter. He awoke the next morning to no sign of the mist and he could even see the little houses just past the beach. His crew mates were still missing but he found he didn't really mind. When he eventually came ashore he was told his was the only ship to arrive and that they had seen no fog.</p><p> </p><p>The bodies washed up on the shore three days later. Despite what he had seen Eyvind do, not one of them died of frostbite or drowning. It appeared that each one had died of heart issues as if they had been scared to death.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Beholding</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>
    <span>Secrets run through the world like a dark underbelly and nothing brings fear into the hearts of powerful men like them being dragged into the light to be scrutinised under the powerful gaze of the </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <b>Beholding</b>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>
      <br/>
    </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>Atsu pretended to ignore the other scholars perusing the bookshelves of the library. He liked to listen to his master’s guests, to find out what the world was like outside of the library. His master wasn’t </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span> cruel, he never hurt him badly or made him do difficult tasks and Atsu was thankful for that, but he wished he could leave, could see the world for himself rather than live vicariously through the words of others. It would be a slight compromise if he could ask his master’s guests about the world but he had received enough slaps across his knuckles from his master to have learnt better. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>He wasn’t allowed to ask questions.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>He didn’t know why he wasn’t allowed to leave, he didn’t know why he was here in the first place, why he had been raised from infancy by his master instead of any parents. He wanted to <em>know</em> so many things so very badly. He wanted to know what the sky looked like and what grass and sand felt like under his feet. Atsu sighed, shrugging off his wistfulness and continuing with his work.</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Night had come to the sprawling library, not that Atsu could tell that naturally, the place had no windows on the upper floor and most of it crawled underground like an infection of papyrus and ink. Atsu was awoken by his master stumbling past his bed, up and out of the library. He stretched and yawned, peering at the letter that his master had been pouring over. </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Someone was asking about him, someone knew he was here and wanted to know how he was doing. They spoke of green grass as if he should be out running in it instead of it being consigned </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>only </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>to his dreams. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>They wrote as if he was living like everyone else and, when he glanced at the beginnings of the letter his master was penning, his master was acting like he hadn’t kept him locked down here his entire life. He had wanted to see and to know for so very long, so long spent spying on his master’s guests for any scrap of information and he </span>
  </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t supposed to be here. </span>
  </em>
  <span>
    <span>He wasn’t supposed to be living like this, his master was lying, keeping him here. Anger bubbled in his stomach and when he heard the hurried steps of his master behind him he turned aroung with a power in his eyes that his master had never seen before. </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>“<em><b>Neb-Hakor, master of this library, why have you kept me here?”</b></em></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>And with a strength to his voice that wrenched even the darkest secrets from the depths of his master, Atsu stood and listened as his master spewed words of jealousy, of anger at a young child for having not been his by blood, of anger at his mother for such, of turning all that anger and punishing the child for being born to the wrong father. He spoke of a man who loved to travel and see all the wonders of the land and of his master’s decision to punish his son by making sure he would never be able to see those same wonders. Atsu stood in silence, his tears having now grown thicker, no longer water and he barely glanced at the dark liquid that poured from his eyes as he wiped them away with the back of his hand, </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>his glare so focussed on his trembling master. </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>“<span><span>You wanted to stop me from seeing anything, the beautiful world above and all the people in it. Well maybe you deserve the fate you would have trapped me in forever.”</span></span></p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Atsu grabbed the knife that lay on the table from his master’s meal, stalking over to the man and wondering whether stabbing or scooping would cause the most permanent damage. </span>
  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Vast</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>The open expanse of the sea to the endless void of space. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <b>Vast</b>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span> expanses of land and sky that promise eternity in their depths. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Adie wasn’t the most well known avatar of her patron nor the most powerful, a young painter from Italy would take that position in a couple of centuries, but she was the first. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> Her breath was tight in her lungs as she guided the explorers up the mountain. She loved the sights from the top of the mountain and would make the trek at least once per season. It didn’t matter that she and her family had made the trip up the mountain several times, it only mattered if these rich foreign folks climbed it, then it would be “properly explored”. Her father told her to just let it go, that at least the explorers paid well. She thought it was ridiculous that these men would be praised when she was the one doing all the hard work. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> One of the men collapsed, he had ignored her advice on breathing right from the start and she wasn’t surprised that he was the first to fall. His comrades gathered around him and left him with a blanket and supplies once they had woken him up. She assured the group that her family would come get him. She wasn’t lying exactly, they would come get his body. They had worshipped this mountain since before even her great-grandparents had been born but she was the one who had been “blessed”. She had been a teenager when she fell off the mountain, so desperate to see the beautiful expanse of sky that she had slipped. Her family had cried out but she had laughed, the fall had been exhilarating and she found herself falling for what seemed like forever before she gently hit the ground as if it was little more than a foot high fall. By the time her family had returned home, mourning their lost child, she had already started on dinner, an unnatural glitter in her eyes and joy in her heart. They had thought she would be scared to go up the mountain but now she would go up all by herself whenever there wasn’t work to do. They deemed her safety a gift from the gods and she led the trial up the mountain now when the family made the trek. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> Reaching the top of the mountain never stopped being a wonder to her, looking down at the world, at the insignificance of it all. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>The men took their notes and diagrams and before long where ready to descend. They didn’t even care about how beautiful the view was, so wrapped in their need for glory. When they all tied themselves together and started climbing back down the mountain Adie knew what she had to do. Knife in hand, she slashed the rope that connected herself to them and couldn’t help her giggle at the look of absolute terror on their faces before they fell. </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span>Their bodies would never be found and only Adie would know it was because they never hit the ground. </span>
  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Flesh</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>
    <span>What makes an animal differ from a person. Blood is blood and meat is meat. The </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <b>Flesh</b>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span> does not differ only the spirit of the being puppeteering the flesh around. <br/><br/></span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>A</span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>ndrew wasn’t the sort of man who you would expect to be involved in anything peculiar. He woke up, ate the breakfast his wife made, went to work, went to the pub, went home, ate, slept. This has been his schedule everyday since he had hit adulthood and he had followed a pretty similar schedule (minus the wife and pub) since his mid-teens. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> He didn’t flinch as blood splashed across his face from the backswing of his cleaver, </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>barely taking a second to wipe it out of his eyes. He had been a butcher for so long, trained by his father, that it just didn’t bother him anymore. His business had been booming, meat had gotten cheaper and cheaper as the farms worked out how to grow their cattle bigger and bigger in smaller and smaller spaces. He didn’t know how he felt about that, the conditions these animals lived under. The term ‘free-range’ wouldn’t exist for another century or so, but if it had he would have preferred the cows and pigs and sheep he butchered to live freer lives. But his attempts to find farms that still treated their animals like living beings sent his prices skyrocketing and he couldn’t keep his business going with such prices when the butcher two streets down could give you the same cut of meat for half the price. He thought of the people outside, wandering from home to work and back home again. How free where they? Shuttled from place to place. Sure the rich had free time and the resources to enjoy some measure of freedom but everyone below them were no better than the cattle.</span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> His cleaver slammed back down on the struggling creature below him. His hand pressed carefully over their mouth, would want people to get upset by the animal’s cries. </span>
  </span>
  <span>
    <span>He always got into a very meditative state when he was butchering, easier not to think about what he was cutting into. He had found the young lamb beneath him in the alley that bordered on the butchery and had happily come into his shop in exchange for a bread roll. Finding the meat out in the back alleys was certainly cheaper than buying them in from the rural farms. They lived far better lives than the animals he bought and he was sure it made the meat taste so much better and he could lower the price of his meat to below that of the butcherer two streets over so business was booming. </span>
  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>
    <span> His hand slipped and the animal below him cried out for him to stop. Andrew had gotten most of the joints of the creature and it had gotten more desperate with each limb carved from its body. He ignored the cries, cleaver cutting straight through their throat to finish the job. </span>
  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>
    <span> Andrew wiped the blood from his brow and smiled at the tinkling of the bell above his shop door, happily handing over the joint they asked for, freshly butchered. </span>
  </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Extinction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There would be many people who would take up the mantle of an Avatar of the newest Fear, but the </span>
  <b>Extinction</b>
  <span> would always have a fondness for its first, the one who brought it into the world in full.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> Jonathan Sims was, to most people, </span>
  <em>
    <span>the</span>
  </em>
  <span> avatar of the Eye, and for all intents and purposes he was, but things began to change after that dreaded statement that caused the world to end. It was subtle at first. The ink that ran from his many eyes like tears slowly thickened into tar and the cassette tape that wrapped itself around his throat and arms slowly became entwined with rope and plastic rubbish. His eyes had been bright green since his coma but now they had turned a sickly yellow-ish green with a radioactive glow. Jon was so busy looking out at the world he had ruined that he barely noticed a thing, unwilling to gaze upon himself, it was Martin who started to see the changes, the effect that this world was having on Jon, effects that were suspiciously not of the Eye. But it wasn’t like they could do anything about it even when the statements Jon began to read out became more and more focussed on those terrified of what had happened to the world and humanity’s inevitable doom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jon didn’t know what it was about the Extinction domain that made him so uncomfortable, something about it pulled at him in a similar manner to the Panopticon and the man who resided within it. When Martin asked him to sit on the couch with him, something in Jon knew he would not be leaving if he settled down for even a moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For most who shared two patrons, they often warred within them, but the Extinction and the Eye coiled together inside of him, both delighted in the world and all the terror that he had wrought. This new power in him grew with each avatar he destroyed and when he climbed up the steps of that almighty tower it was not the Eye that Jon channelled, it was not the Eye that caused Jonah Magnus to be ripped apart. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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